NERCHINSK, RUSSIA—Quickly unlocking one cell door after another as he shuffled down the dimly lit hallway in his tattered prison-issued jumpsuit, a gaunt, weathered Secretary of State John Kerry led an inmate uprising Tuesday in a remote Siberian labor camp, sources confirmed.

HAWIJA, IRAQ—Responding to his captors’ demands that he divulge who he is and what he was doing in the region, kidnapped journalist Tim Cascella reportedly found himself Thursday having to explain to several ISIS militants what BuzzFeed News is.

VATICAN CITY—Saying they had been giving some thought recently to the idea of sending legions of Christian boys and girls to retake the Holy Land and wanted to gauge the level of support, Vatican officials reportedly began putting out feelers Wednesday to determine how the public might react to another Children’s Crusade, much as was attempted in the year 1212.

BOGDARNYA, RUSSIA—Working frantically to gain access to the system’s override settings at the computer terminal controlling the impending implosion, Secretary of State John Kerry scrambled to stop the self-destruct sequence of an underground bunker located thousands of feet below the Russian countryside Tuesday while oligarch Dmitry Granovsky taunted him from the numerous banks of monitors positioned throughout the facility, sources confirmed.

MOSUL, IRAQ—Telling reporters he had renounced his role as a militant and would soon be relocating in order to seek out an environment more conducive to fully devoting himself to his newfound religious faith, 24-year-old Huzaifa Quraishi confirmed Tuesday his recent Islamic awakening had inspired him to defect from ISIS.

CARACAS, VENEZUELA—Sources are confirming that the Central Intelligence Agency has orchestrated a coup d’état in the South American nation of Venezuela, toppling the country’s 30 million residents and replacing them with an entirely new, pro-American populace.

VATICAN CITY—Receiving protection against chemical, environmental, and immoral hazards in the workplace, Pope Francis reportedly began wearing a miter fitted with a hard polycarbonate faceshield this week to comply with the Vatican’s new health and safety standards.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea remains largely unknown to Americans due mainly to the secrecy and isolationism upheld by its government. The Onion provides a primer on North Korea’s people and culture

PYONGYANG—Experiencing a deep sense of nostalgia while sifting through the stack of old papers, North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un reportedly stumbled onto childhood drawings Monday that he had made of nuclear attacks on the West.

VATICAN CITY—In an effort to strengthen their relationship and foster interfaith dialogue, Pope Francis reportedly welcomed the winged Mayan snake god Kukulkan to the Vatican this week as part of a month-long deity exchange program.

WASHINGTON—In an effort to improve America’s ranking in the global technology sector, the U.S. Department of Education unveiled a new STEM initiative Friday designed to discourage students in other countries from choosing careers in science and math.

‘Time For Work,’ Says German Chancellor

ATHENS, GREECE—Following a sudden high-pitched squeal of audio feedback, the 11 million citizens of Greece were reportedly woken up at 6 a.m. Wednesday by German chancellor Angela Merkel informing them over loudspeakers that it was time for work.

WASHINGTON—Highlighting the gaping security holes that continue to persist 15 years after the attacks, an encouraging report released Thursday by radical extremist think tank the Caliphate Institute determined that the United States is no safer than it was before 9/11.

WASHINGTON—Ahead of the highly anticipated Summer Olympics in Rio, millions of weary and emotionally exhausted Americans expressed excitement Friday at getting the chance to watch the socio-political failings of another country for two weeks.

WASHINGTON—Bowing their heads as they solemnly shuffled single-file past Capitol Hill, leaders from around the world reportedly poured into Washington, D.C. this week to pay their last respects to the dying nation.

NICE, FRANCE—In the wake of the Bastille Day terrorist attack in Nice, France that killed 84 people and injured over 200 more, humankind told reporters Friday it was hoping it would only have to put up with a few more millennia of this shit.

NICE, FRANCE—Following yesterday’s terrorist attack in Nice, France that left over 80 people dead and scores more injured, sources reported that a dazed and utterly dejected global populace halfheartedly muttered the phrase “People are inherently good” to themselves Friday.

VATICAN CITY—Racing frantically through St. Peter’s Square toward the sound of the Supreme Pontiff’s agonized cries, members of the Vatican’s Swiss Guard reportedly charged and surrounded a colossal writhing mass of black tentacles Wednesday that was devouring Pope Francis.

WASHINGTON—In the wake of Prime Minister David Cameron’s announcement that he would leave office following the United Kingdom’s vote to exit the European Union, tens of millions of Americans expressed their confusion to reporters Friday about a system of government in which a leader would resign after making a terrible decision.

SAINT-ÉTIENNE, FRANCE—Midway through Friday’s Euro 2016 group stage match between the Czech Republic and Croatia, sources confirmed that, oh good, the sound of an explosion that just echoed throughout the stadium was only a fan firing an enormous flare gun.

PARIS—After retrieving the eyesore from amid a clutter of unused display cases and movable stanchions in the back of the facility’s basement where it had been stowed ever since the museum received it, curators at the Louvre hurried to display an ugly Vincent van Gogh painting before the artwork’s donor made a surprise visit to the museum Friday.

WASHINGTON—In an urgent warning posted online Tuesday by the U.S. State Department, American citizens traveling to the Netherlands were strongly advised to avoid the “extremely lame” Amsterdam windmill tour.

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Terrorist Bomb Not Defused In Thrilling, Suspense-Packed Final Minutes

LONDON—An action-packed chase through the subway tunnels beneath London's famed Victoria Station, culminating in a climactic, pulse-pounding fight sequence atop a speeding double-decker bus, did not occur Monday, when a terrorist bomb exploded on a crowded downtown bus after not being defused at the very last moment.

The aftermath of a deadly terrorist attack that was not averted
in an edge-of-your-seat finale.

The bombing, which killed 22 and seriously injured at least 30 more, ranks among the worst incidents of terrorism to hit London in years and was not presented in THX digital Surroundsound.

"That's it, scum—now it's time to take out the trash," a grim-faced CIA agent, who had been working closely with a team of Britain's top anti-terrorism experts, did not say moments before defeating the leader of a mysterious terrorist organization in a deadly, desperate encounter atop the speeding bus.

"It was horrible, just horrible," said a visibly shaken Edith Nesbitt, 38, a London homemaker whose 12-year-old daughter Annalee was badly injured in the explosion. "Everywhere you turned, there was smoke and death. So much senseless pain and suffering. How could anybody do something like this?"

Annalee is currently listed in critical condition at a local hospital after not being pulled out of harm's way by a man who lost his own family to a terrorist attack years before and swore never to let another child suffer again, no matter what the cost.

London police officials do not yet know whether the deadly attack—which was not accompanied by selections from today's hottest acts, including hits by The Chemical Brothers, Foo Fighters and Method Man—was the work of a militant faction of the IRA, Palestinian extremists, or an individual not affiliated with a terrorist organization. However, evil criminal masterminds bent on destroying the world from their top-secret, high-tech undersea headquarters have been "definitely ruled out" as suspects.

In addition, no psychopathic former FBI demolitions experts who went insane after the deaths of their wives, which to this day they blame on the government agents who originally trained them to be killers, have stepped forward to claim responsibility for the tragedy. And no streamlined black helicopters, dangling rope ladders from which trained SWAT teams dropped onto the bus at high speeds, arrived on the scene just in time to freeze the bomb's homemade timer casing with liquid nitrogen, saving the lives of the dozens of innocent people on board.

An ambulance carrying victims not pulled from harm's way by anyone's recklessly brave actions.

"Out of nowhere, nobody suddenly leapt onto the bus from the roof of a nearby building, tackling the foul villain behind this unthinkable act," said shopkeeper Thomas Kent, who lost most of his right arm in the blast. "Then, after stopping the mad bomber's plan, nobody got the girl, grabbing her roughly about the waist and kissing her slightly smudged face as the credits rolled."

Added Kent: "The doctors say my wife may not survive the night."

Though top Scotland Yard officials have assigned a special team to investigate the crime, they currently have no leads regarding the identity of the culprits or a possible motive. The officials also have not surprised any onlookers by swimming alive to the surface of the Thames River after driving any speeding sportscars into the river in slow motion, momentarily causing people to think they'd been killed before emerging unharmed.

"We are slowly sifting through the forensic evidence, but it is still far too early to draw any definitive conclusions about this bombing," Scotland Yard spokesman Winston Crawford told reporters at a Monday press conference, not held in a room in which any special supercomputer swivels out from behind a giant antique bookcase. "At this point, all we really know is that none of us have recently slept with any stunning, exotic-looking foreign women who may or may not be working for the Russians, and that there may be as many as a dozen more bodies still underneath the rubble that rescue workers have yet to locate and identify."

When asked if police have come across any secret satellite photos, coded messages, or double-dealing informants who have revealed a way to track the deadly bombers to their lair, surround them with an elite assault team, and somehow, against all odds, stop them before they kill again, Crawford replied, "No."